Don MacLeod is a man with a mission: teaching his readers to go beyond Google in their search for information. In How to Find Out Anything, MacLeod shares research techniques acquired during more than 25 years as a law librarian. In his first chapter, MacLeod teaches the reader to think through a research problem. He begins with an eye-opening discussion of how to craft a question that can be answered, moves on to the matter of where to look for information and ends with advice on fact-checking your own research.
The rest of the book is a detailed discussion of the tools available to the modern researcher. Despite his repeated caveat that Google is not "the end-all, be-all of research," MacLeod provides a thorough discussion of how to use the popular search engine most effectively. He also offers strategies for accessing the "deep web," an overview of libraries and library resources and suggestions on building your own reference collection. He discusses contacting associations for knowledge about specific subjects, finding people and researching the public record. His advice is always practical and sometimes surprising. (Looking for someone? Start with the phone book.)
Whether you're a journalist who needs an expert source or an amateur genealogist looking for your great-grandfather's military record--or just interested in finding out the total gross sales of linoleum in 1968--How to Find Out Anything will give you new tools for the search. --Pamela Toler, blogging at History in the Margins